What crisis? Barcelona dominates Man City in Champions League round of 16 first leg

Some crisis.

On the emotional rollercoaster that the Spanish soccer press insists on projecting onto the teams it covers, Barcelona was supposed to be at another real low point. The C-word was dropped again. Crisis. There was the 1-0 loss to Malaga last weekend when Barca looked entirely flat, and then another controversy was manufactured.

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Lionel Messi and Gerard Pique had been spotted at a casino the night before their flight to Manchester for the first leg of the Champions League round of 16 matchup with City. Manager Luis Enrique – reportedly in a testy relationship with Messi, who has been coddled by every other Barca manager he has had – was allegedly unhappy about it.

For the umpteenth time in this dynastic era at Barcelona, the end of the empire was declared. And then Barca went out and smashed two goals past Man City in the opening half hour to essentially put the tie out of reach – even if it ultimately had to settle for the 2-1 away win.

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Totally dominant in the first half, Barcelona went ahead in the 16th minute after Luis Suarez couldn't quite get his head on a high pass from Messi to redirect it. But it fell kindly to him as defender Vincent Kompany misread the play. So the Uruguayan forward twirled around the ball and whipped it into the net past the helpless Joe Hart.

Barca was very much back to their old short-passing, tiki-take game, tapping the ball about with flair and purpose and making it zip around City in circles. There was little the home team could do about it much to the consternation of its packed house.

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Hart prevented a second goal in the 26th minute with a splendid, point-blank save on Suarez one-on-one. But in the 30th minute, Barca connected 22 consecutive passes – a metaphor for the half – before Ivan Rakitic unloosed Messi and the little Argentine found Jordi Alba out wide. He squared the ball for Suarez, who ran around Kompany – again Kompany – and slid to connect with the ball and ping it in off the far post.

The closest City came to scoring in the first half was when it was denied a plea for a penalty when an Edin Dzeko shot whacked Pique in the chest and some of his right arm, which was flush to his body, at the edge of the box. But there was no call, which would have been harsh anyway. Dani Alves accidentally dinked a cross off City's bar. And then Samir Nasri managed a tepid shot at goalkeeper Marc-Andre Ter Stegen for City on the brink of halftime.

It seemed then, with three halves yet to play in this contest, that City would also fail to reach the quarterfinals in this, its fourth Champions League campaign.

But Barca took its foot off the accelerator after the break. It took City a while to capitalize. Sergio Aguero popped a shot just wide in the 55th minute – the first bit of City danger. But then, in the 69th, he finally put his club on the board. Following a rare Messi turnover, David Silva set him up at the edge of the box with a nice touch and Aguero wrestled through the pack of defenders to smack his finish past Ter Stegen.

Might this become a real game?

No.

Five minutes later, Gael Clichy was sent off with his second yellow card for clattering into Dani Alves. That deflated City's spirit and Barca could play out the final quarter of an hour at a canter. Hart saved a 93rd-minute penalty by Messi, after Pablo Zabaleta stupidly took him down in the box, and watched him head the rebound wide on a belly flop. So that was strange. But it probably won't matter much.

City, for the more than billion dollars spent and the half decade now invested in this project, still isn't equipped to compete in Europe.

Barcelona, meanwhile, is having a weird season. Suddenly, after that first half, Luis Enrique is being called a genius again. He seems to bounce from epic highs to desperate lows – a sort of bipolar soccer existence. His team has lost an unusually high four league games by the end of February, but it dazzled on Tuesday. With a home game to look forward to against City, the Catalans seems the overwhelming favorite to advance.

Barcelona hasn't crumbled yet.

Leander Schaerlaeckens is a soccer columnist for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter @LeanderAlphabet.